Author: Regency
Title: In A Flash
Pairing: Berne Wolfe/Serena Campbell
Warnings: None
Summary: AU. Bernie's first mistake is telling Cameron about the attractive woman she sees in the airport. Her second is agreeing to snap a picture of the mysterious woman to show him. It's all fun and games until the flash goes off.
Author's Note: Come flail about Berena and Catherine and Jemma with me on Tumblr at sententiousandbellicose!
Prompt: Person A sees person B at an airport and thinks they're hot. They take a picture to show their best friend/sibling what they look like.
The flash is on.
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from Holby City. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
In that sterile, impersonal airport terminal, it was the red coat that caught Bernie's attention.
There was a woman just disembarking from a flight out of Geneva with a young man of about 25 at her side. About Bernie's age, she had short-cropped dark hair, fair skin, strong features and a ready smile that for just a second made Bernie forget her hankering for a cigarette. And then there was her coat. A crimson duster with a cowl neckline to compliment a graceful neck and shoulders, which skirted over a distinctly curvaceous figure and terminated just below the knee. She had likely dressed for comfort and not to be gawked at, nevertheless here Bernie was, dragging her feet to have a second look. There were plenty of travelers dressed in red milling through arrivals and hurrying toward the luggage carousels, to be sure, yet none held a candle to her.
Bernie hadn't been struck by the sight of a woman in quite a while. She was enjoying it, the rush of blood to her cheeks, the urge to smile at her and ask her name. To flirt shamelessly with a pretty stranger. She'd thought her most recent breakup had ruined her for the chase forever. How relieved she was to be wrong.
Cameron, who she was meant to be meeting for lunch as soon as she freed herself from airport gridlock wasn't quite so impressed by her sudden distraction from their phone conversation. "Mum, you still there?"
Bernie wrenched her attention away from the woman to listen to her son. "Er…sorry, Cam, I didn't catch that."
"Everything all right?"
"Yeah." Bernie lowered her head when the other woman glanced in her general direction and pretended to paw through her rucksack. She'd packed light for a short visit, she had nothing to check.
"Who is she? The woman. You only lose track of what you're doing when an attractive woman passes by." Bernie was indignant. Pot, meet kettle!
She scoffed. "That's not true!"
"It is. Ask Charlotte."
"I will!" She would do nothing of the kind. Bernie knew for a fact she'd vacillated wildly between repressed awkwardness and unconscious flirtation with her daughter's comeliest female teachers over the years. She didn't need the reminder just as she and Charlotte were on good terms again.
Even Cameron seemed doubtful. "Uh huh, what's she look like this time? You usually go for the same type."
"Do not." Bernie was scarcely one to go in for a certain look, it was all down to personality for her. This time she'd admit it was the appearance that had drawn her eye, and the voice. The woman had taken a couple of brief calls, one with someone named Ellie, a daughter Bernie guessed from the woman's recognizably maternal exasperation, and another from someone named Raf. Probably the very lucky boyfriend, Bernie lamented. This wasn't helping her mood. She was planning to spend the next fortnight on leave from the army catching up with her kids and civilian friends, not bemoaning the probable heterosexuality of unavailable women in the airport. But that voice. Her perfect stranger had a voice for radio, and wet dreams.
"You're doing it again. Take a picture, I want to see this one." Her son had made it his business to vet all her girlfriends since she came out and to his credit, the ones he disliked tended to be the worst for her. Maybe this time will be different?
"You're mad. I'm not photographing a complete stranger to satisfy your curiosity."
"You're still looking at her, I can tell. Just take a picture. If you do it right, she won't even notice."
"And what are the odds of me doing it right?"
"I don't know, Mum. Last I heard you could operate a tank, since when has an iPhone camera been too intimidating for Major Wolfe?" Like his father, Cameron had the annoying ability to get her goat. Unlike his father, he didn't tend to use it against her. Can't have done too badly with this one, can I?
"Only because you asked." Bernie discreetly tapped her way to the camera on her phone and directed it at the woman in red. She was chatting amiably with her companion; he'd said something to make her laugh. She had a pronounced dimple in her chin and expressive brown eyes. Bernie noted a passing resemblance between the woman and young man, wondered if he might be her son.
Bernie tapped the screen right over the object of her fascination to zoom in on her and clicked the camera symbol to take the picture. Her phone gave a soft whir and click but not before emitting a blinding white flash that simply could not be missed by anybody in a twenty foot radius. Her mystery woman blinked in bewilderment and wheeled round to stare directly at her and the mobile she was just beginning to lower from its incriminating position.
"Oh, fuck me." Bernie hadn't been this filled with instant regret since she was caught kissing Alex after her last promotion ceremony, and that had signaled the end of her marriage. This was just the end of a remote possibility. Play it cool, she advised herself to no avail.
"Mum?"
"Why didn't you tell me about the flash, Cam?" Bernie used her mobile for calls and the odd text; her tours with RAMC rarely permitted her to use it for more. She was years late getting into Words with Friends and Angry Birds, never mind the thing's native functions.
"The flash? You left the flash on? Oh god, Mum, did she see you?" He sounded as panicked as she felt, intermixed with not a little blatant schadenfreude.
Bernie was too mortified to retreat from the woman in red striding purposefully toward her as though the bustling crowd did not exist. That infectious smile of hers was a happy memory compared to her irate, suspicious mien. Bernie's body had a confusing response to this woman in a mood, desire marbled through with resignation and dread and burning anticipation. She did love a woman who didn't shrink from a fight.
"Did you just take my picture?"
To Bernie's grave misfortune her mystery woman was even more attractive at close proximity. Bernie averted her gaze from the woman's lips (which though pinched looked soft) to her eyes (which were blazing), and then away again to her neck (a terrible idea). She had stop herself from dropping her eyes any lower. There really wasn't any part of this woman that wasn't appealing to Bernie.
"Erm." Cam snorted over the phone and then swiftly stifled himself. Bernie was going to murder her only son. Should she survive this woman's perfectly justified anger, anyway.
"I'll take that as a yes," said the woman with the flick of an elegant brow.
Bernie pursed her lips together lest she groan in total social embarrassment. Give her an enemy insurgency any day. Or right now. Anybody, right now would be lovely. She almost meant it.
"Might I ask what for?"
Bernie cast about frantically for an answer that didn't make her sound at best creepy, at worst nefarious. Her mind remained resolutely blank and the woman's eyes narrowed the longer the loaded silence endured. Bernie ducked behind her fringe, face burning. Damn her weakness for beautiful women. Ignoring them used to be so much easier. Being closeted will do that.
"Mum," Cam whispered in her ear, "is that her? She sounds like your type."
"Shh," Bernie hissed out of the corner of her mouth. "I…I really like your coat. I was just showing my son in case he wanted an idea what I might like for–for my birthday. Isn't that right, son?"
Cameron began laughing too uncontrollably to be any help. Bernie squinted at her mobile in disapproval and lowered the volume. "He said yes."
"Oh yes, I heard his agreeable cackling just fine. I'll ask again, just the once: my picture, why?" Her voice could have given a lesser soul frostbite it was so cool. It was to Bernie's credit that the desert was in her blood or she might not have survived it.
She gave up the subterfuge and welcomed public humiliation like an old friend. "You're very…pretty and he wanted to see." Which actually sounded worse now that she'd said it aloud.
"Ah." The first truly neutral utterance Bernie had heard in her life. Her mysterious woman gave nothing up. She was unreadable in her scrutiny of Bernie. Intimidating as someone who was used to being the authority figure in the room and having all the power, the way Bernie was in the field where she held life and death in her hands. It was shockingly attractive, not that that helped matters any.
"I'll delete it right now. I am so sorry. That was a gross invasion of your privacy. I should never have agreed to it." Bernie had the impression that her voice was getting progressively quieter from how much nearer the other woman had to stand to hear her.
"If I'm already being shown off to your son, the least you can do is introduce yourself." She proffered a well-manicured hand. "Serena Campbell."
Thoroughly embarrassed she might be, but a coward she was not. Bernie bucked up. She was a major in the Royal Army Medical Corps, not a greenhorn recruit, she could handle a plan going to pot. She transferred her mobile to her left hand to take Serena Campbell's hand in her right. "Bernie Wolfe, pleasure's all mine."
"That remains to be seen. I think lunch is in order, don't you? Your treat." Her expression dared Bernie to refuse.
Bernie feinted, "I'm supposed to be meeting my son."
Serena glanced meaningfully at her phone. "Can't wait meet him for myself." Cameron swore audibly and Bernie took a bit of sadistic pleasure in not facing this formidable woman on her lonesome. He mumbled his excuses, promising to meet them at the taxi queue, and rang off.
With a glance that strongly induced Bernie to follow, Serena began the short trek back to her young man. Although Bernie was sure she could outrun Serena Campbell if necessary, she followed meekly along, unable to justify making an even bigger spectacle of herself at this late date.
"So," prompted Serena, "you aren't a member of the Holby press?"
Bernie frowned, trying to devise if this was some sort of trick question. "No?" Despite standing out from the crowd Bernie didn't think Serena was a celebrity. At least not one she'd ever seen. Then again, entertainment news was ages in reaching the soldiers in Afghanistan. She could have been a reality TV star for all Bernie knew. She's undoubtedly got the panache for it.
Serena hummed at her response and Bernie was relieved to see part of the earlier tension leech from Serena's frame. "Good." When her smile returned it was subtly warmer in a way Bernie couldn't help interpreting as flirtatious.
Serena Campbell was flirting with her just a little, and Bernie wasn't complaining. Far be it for her to look a gift horse in the mouth when it looked that splendid in red.
Serena laid a firm hand on Bernie's arm to keep her at a distance from her traveling companion who eyed Bernie with wary curiosity.
"Ms. Wolfe, this is Jason, my nephew. Jason, this is Bernie Wolfe."
Bernie inclined her head in acknowledgment when he didn't offer a handshake. He scrutinized her with a familiar intensity. "You're the woman who took a picture of my aunt without her consent."
"Um." Not mincing words clearly ran in the family.
"That is generally considered a breach of good manners and privacy. That's what Alan and Auntie Serena told me."
Bernie colored, refusing to look at Serena for fear of immolating from shame. "They're right. I can't apologize enough."
"You already have," he opined simply. He turned to his aunt. "I told you she was watching you, Auntie Serena."
Serena smirked gamely. "You did and you were right, Jason."
"You both saw me?"
"You were hardly being circumspect." Bernie suspected Jason thought he could have done better. She didn't doubt him. "If you were interested in my aunt romantically, you should have approached her directly. That's what all the men did in Geneva."
Serena cut in gently, "Jason…"
"The women were subtler in making their intentions known, but none of them resorted to underhand tactics to get her attention. Are you usually this sneaky, Ms. Wolfe?" Serena covered her eyes whereas Bernie took his well-meaning interrogation in stride. Jason was to Serena as Cameron was to her and just as much of a troublemaker, it seemed.
"Only when it counts. Are you hungry, Jason? I promised your auntie lunch and I'm a woman of my word. Soldiers have to be." Serena and Jason seemed to perk up with interest at that little declaration. Bernie just managed not to puff up with pride. Very few could fail to be impressed by a soldier. That wasn't cheating, whatever Charlotte might have said, that was making the best possible use of her resources.
Serena dropped her hand to fiddle with the pendant dangling from her neck. A notable flush had come to her cheeks. "You really don't mind?"
"I never turn down the chance to share a meal with a beautiful woman, or her clever nephew. Today, I get to do both. Shall we?" She pointed them toward the escalator at the far end of the rapidly emptying terminal. It would take them downstairs where they could retrieve any checked luggage they might need.
Aunt and nephew exchanged a telling look.
"She seems sincere as far as I can tell, Auntie Serena, but I will be observing her for suspect behavior during our meal."
Serena patted his shoulder affectionately. "I'd expect nothing less." She looked Bernie over and licked her lips. They were slick and reddish-pink with fading lipstick. They still looked unspeakably soft. Definitely flirting and definitely interested.
"Well, Ms. Wolfe, first impressions aside, I have to admit I can't wait to get to know you better."
Bernie had a feeling this camera mishap might be the best thing to ever happen to her. Cam was right. She smirked indulgently at her own private joke. When wasn't he? "Ms. Campbell, you couldn't be more excited than me."